Since 2011, Vladimir Putin’s attack on Ukraine has been “a matter of time,” former US President Bill Clinton said in a statement published Friday by the British Financial Times.

Citing the appearance of the eight-year-old U.S. president alongside his wife Hillary, the newspaper reported that Bill Clinton said he realized in 2011 that Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was “just a matter of time” after a “chilling conversation” they had with president. Russia in Davos, Switzerland.

During that meeting, Mr. Clinton said, Putin rejected a US-brokered deal negotiated by his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, to respect Ukrainian territory in exchange for Kiev temporarily giving up the Soviet Union’s nuclear arsenal.

“Vladimir Putin told me in 2011 — three years before the takeover of Crimea — that he didn’t agree with the deal I made with Boris Yeltsin,” the former US president recalled.

“He said . . . “I don’t agree with that. I don’t support. And I’m not bound by it.” And from that day on, I knew it was just a matter of time.”

The same article reports that Hillary Clinton spoke about how the war might end:

Hillary Clinton argued that in order to end the fighting, Ukraine must either defeat Russia or at least reclaim the territories lost in the east as a result of the Russian invasion last year. “They need support,” he said. “I wouldn’t trust him [τον Πούτιν] to the negotiating table under any circumstances, unless the Ukrainians – with our support – have enough power.”

Source: Guardian